


Reflections of our Mistakes

by radkoko



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Apologies, M/M, Romance, Silent Fight, reconnecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 09:46:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radkoko/pseuds/radkoko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes when things go wrong people fix their mistakes, and sometimes it spirals out of control. Iruka and Kakashi still find themselves battling against each other's stubborn natures to find the medium in which they live their life together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reflections of our Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Game of Traps: The Nut Kin Remix](https://archiveofourown.org/works/800009) by [Kita_the_Spaz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kita_the_Spaz/pseuds/Kita_the_Spaz). 



Reflections of Our Mistakes

Iruka slid his hand along the toned chest that lay below him. The pale skin contrasted his own tanned hand, but it was something he'd grown to love. He looked back to the face of his lover, as he sat mostly still on top of him. Iruka's deep chocolate brown eyes met with the mismatched pair that belonged to none other than Kakashi. He had always found Kakashi’s eyes fascinating, but not for the fact that one was the blood red sharingan that should belong only to those of Uchiha lineage. Instead, it was the act that brought the eye to Kakashi: stepping in front of his teammate, getting himself hurt instead of allowing harm to Obito. Unfortunately it hadn't ended well, but going from fighting all the time, to caring for one another, it was the hope that Iruka had for every one of his students.

He snapped upright as he felt cool slender fingers graze his side. A shiver worked its way up his spine, matching the hand that hovered along his right side from waist to shoulder.

"What's wrong?" Kakashi asked, sounding a touch worried behind his pure curiosity.

"Just getting lost in your eyes," Iruka said straight-faced, as he started to lose himself once again.

"That one was a little ridiculous, even for me…" Kakashi's voice faded, as another replaced it.

~~~ Past ~~~

"I didn't do anything wrong!" Iruka was insistent, but it was of no help, Kakashi was pissed at him and he didn't even know why.

"You threw it away…" The calm anger seethed through Kakashi, and Iruka knew he was on the wrong end of his anger.

"I thought we'd talked about this, we were cleaning up, and some things have to go. It can't all be kept," Iruka responded logically, hoping to point out that Kakashi had to clear some of his clutter.

"But not that! Why did you throw that out?" Kakashi's anger seemed to be rising, and fast.

"I don't even know what you're yelling at me about, Kakashi," Iruka said sternly, trying to get an answer for what he had apparently thrown away.

"There was a bowl that was here, it's always been right here. Never anywhere else, and never to be touched." Kakashi motioned to the empty spot on top of the chest of drawers in his room.

"It was a broken bowl, it got thrown out a few days ago," Iruka replied confused; why was Kakashi throwing a fit over this bowl?

Kakashi turned towards Iruka, blank-faced, with just a hint of true loss showing in his grey eye. He pushed past Iruka, quickly disappearing from sight, slamming the door loud enough to echo all the way back to Iruka.

He couldn't even imagine what had just happened.

~~~ Present ~~~

"Are you listening to me?" Kakashi asked as he strung his fingers through Iruka's loose hair.

"Not really," Iruka admitted, seeing Kakashi's face grow more confused, "I just can't seem to focus…"

~~~ Past ~~~

After Kakashi had walked out of his home that night, Iruka didn't see him for a week. He had to just hope that the man was on a mission, but his disappearance terrified Iruka. When Iruka saw Kakashi walk into the mission room, he almost sighed in relief, but something was off. Kakashi purposefully avoided Iruka's line, which for once was the shortest. Even when it was twice as long as the others Iruka could count on Kakashi coming to see him when he got back from a mission.

"Kakashi, I've finished with my line if you'd like to join me here to take care of that," Iruka called to the man, who grudgingly trudged over to stand in front of him.

Iruka started looking over the paper, and whispered just loud enough for Kakashi to hear. "Is something wrong? I haven't seen you in a week, and you walked in here purposefully ignoring me." Iruka noticed that the paper was perfect, nothing wrong as it usually was, just to irk him. He looked straight at Kakashi, who was still silent and avoiding all eye contact. If the paper was perfect, then Kakashi had never planned on bringing it to Iruka's line, even before walking in.

Kakashi turned away, about to walk off, when he dodged Iruka's swipe to grab his arm and stop him.

Iruka shook his head as he watched Kakashi just walk away.

~~~

Iruka stood, mouth agape with not a sound escaping from it. His hands twitched as his mind processed the information he'd just received. Taking a sharp breath, he just spilled at the mouth.

"You ignore me for almost a month and only open up to tell me this? I mean you're leaving on a mission to capture and return a missing-nin that has it out for you! How am I supposed to respond? I just…I can't even think properly."

"I could have just continued ignoring you," Kakashi said casually as he purposefully avoided every moment Iruka tried to look him in the eye.

"Ohh, that would have been great, your lover, whom you're pissed at for some reason, still unknown to him, would have found out in another few weeks that you've just gone missing. Left for dead, after a mission against this missing-nin went awry and the last conversation you had with him was a fight," Iruka spelled out the most likely scenario he could think of. "And please, can you tell me what I did wrong, I still don't know!" He'd snapped, and he knew it.

They stood in silence, as Kakashi finally took the initiative to look straight into his eyes. 

"That broken bowl you threw out…It was my mother's," Kakashi finally revealed.

Iruka froze, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and his brain screaming at him, yet when he opened his mouth to talk, his tongue was the one that betrayed him.

"Why wouldn't you tell me that before we started cleaning? If it was that important why didn't you notice sooner? And it took you a month to tell me how much I'd fucked this up?" Iruka cringed at his own words, but he couldn't hold his tongue. It hurt him that he was being blamed for something he wouldn't have known, and yet it hurt him more knowing it wasn't something he would ever be able to fix.

Kakashi paused. "You've been informed of my mission, I have nothing else to say."

Iruka jumped as he realized what was happening, his arm shot out to stop Kakashi, but he got nothing but smoke as Kakashi disappeared in the blink of an eye.

His face was instantly in his hands as he dropped to a squat, and gave his brain a few minutes to process what he'd just done. Not only had he actually messed up those weeks ago, but he'd just made it worse. Kakashi had finally opened up to him, and he instead threw the blame back in his face. It wasn't anywhere close to the make-up discussion he'd hoped to have when he first saw Kakashi, or even the apology that was forming in his head before his tongue took the lead.

Breathing in slowly, Iruka dropped his hands and sat down in the grass. There was nothing that could focus him today.

Minutes, or maybe even hours, later Iruka saw a small squirrel wander up to him. He'd been sitting still long enough that she wasn't afraid of him. She sniffed at his hand that sat away from his body, then walked closer. The small squirrel held its acorn up, as if offering it to Iruka. He was intrigued, but pushed it back towards the squirrel.

"I'm not hungry, promise." Iruka waited to see how the squirrel responded to him. She seemed to look around before taking it back to herself, sitting down where she was and started nibbling at the hard shell of the acorn.

"It's sad when I can have more company in a squirrel than my own partner," Iruka sighed as he contemplated how he might ever be able to fix it. He saw the squirrel quirk her head as if curious to know his story.

"Well this might be crazy, but I'll tell you if you're willing to listen." To which the squirrel nodded her head.

"It started with the cleaning of Kakashi's family home. I'm not sure what we're doing with it, but we both knew that it needed to be picked up, and things had to go." Iruka then continued to the discarding of the precious bowl, being ignored by Kakashi, and finally to his mouth ruining what might have been the ending of their fight.

"I don't know how to fix it," he said sadly, as if expecting advice from the small rodent. "I don't even know if you can understand me, but thanks for listening,"

Iruka pet the squirrel lightly on its head before he picked himself off the ground and walked back to his currently empty apartment.

~~~

The squirrel became his afternoon companion over the week. She'd listened to him, and had revealed to him early on that she could speak, just barely. She'd been a summon at one time, but had since lost her master. It had been years and no new ninja had sealed a contract with her. She found the Konoha woods, and said it was the best place to be. She shared her name, Kinomi, and asked Iruka to not tell on her. She of course was more than willing to listen to Iruka, and he felt it was only fair to do the one thing she asked of him.

One day, Kinomi was just sitting with Iruka in the afternoon sun, when a small pug walked up.

“Will you and my master, please start talking again?” Pakkun whined. “He’s acting like the cold uncaring ninja that he was before you and the loud orange kid. We like him when he’s with you.”

Iruka sat silent for a moment. “It’s not me, Pakkun. Well, not directly. I messed something up, but he still won’t tell me what. How can I fix something if I don’t even know what I broke?”

Pakkun grumbled for a moment, but perked up when he saw the small squirrel in Iruka’s lap. The dog growled, waiting to see where the squirrel would go.

Iruka grabbed Kinomi and held her away from Pakkun. “Hey! You aren’t chasing her…” he said waiting for Pakkun to acknowledge him. He clicked his tongue a few times before the dog snapped out of his focus to look at Iruka.

He visibly slouched, still on alert, but ready to listen to Iruka. But as soon as Iruka put Kinomi back in his lap, the two were off, Kinomi running like crazy, and Pakkun desperately trying to keep up.

“This is not what I needed right now,” Iruka sighed as he went off chasing them both to make sure Pakkun didn’t eat his new friend.

~~~

The glares and silence seemed to have gotten worse, as another week passed. Iruka knew Kakashi was leaving soon, but there was never the right moment. He'd almost felt it was right when they had shared a moment at the Memorial stone, but when their eyes met, he knew his words would have meant nothing.

But now, he had to do something. Kakashi had come over to their place, but as Iruka feared, it wasn't for them, instead for the weapons that were stored there.

"I still wish you wouldn't go. I know you're intelligent and strong, but vengeance doesn't always work. If we take anything from history, it's often our own undoing," Iruka said softly, knowing he wasn't making anything better, but at this point he wasn't sure it could get much worse.

"Iruka, how can I not go on a mission I was assigned to?"

"Just tell Tsunade no, for once." He was getting to a point of begging.

"That only works for you and Shizune, and rarely at that."

The silence was draining the room of any connection they had started working towards. The stifled room was getting to Iruka as he excused himself.

Before he got anything, he heard a howl of pain from the front door. He rushed to see what was going on. When he got there he almost wished he hadn't.

Pakkun was lying in a heap just inside the door, and the squirrel was there, barely standing, and covered in blood. Iruka quickly scooped up the small animal as he called out for help. "Kakashi! I need you to get help now! Pakkun and Kinomi are hurt!"

He turned just in time to see Kakashi disappear, which relieved him enough to get a clearer picture of what had happened.

He used his chakra to soothe Kinomi’s pain; he hadn't learned much medical training, but enough for when it was needed.

Tsunade and Kakashi rushed into the house, where Iruka was waiting to leave the pair in the most capable hands he knew.

~~~

It'd been a crazy day. Moments of good and bad, from him and Kakashi actually talking, to Pakkun and Kinomi running into their house crying in pain. They'd been in the woods playing with chakra wire, when a missing-nin came after them, and from their state afterwards, he wasn't playing nice even with the innocent animals.

Now Iruka stood with Kakashi in their living room, and he knew it couldn't go on any more.

“...just looked like a badly cracked tea bowl,” Iruka finally apologized.

“You weren’t to know,” Kakashi said in response, sighing. “In retrospect, it’s as much my fault as yours.”

“No,” he responded, knowing he had to make Kakashi understand. “It’s not. I didn’t know and I had no right to rearrange things. I should have asked before throwing it out. It was stupid to assume that it was junk and not something sentimental.” He took in a deep breath, and wiped his watering eye. “I wish I had known that it had that much value to you.”

“It was the last tangible thing I had of her,” Kakashi said. “I still don’t know what Father did with most of her pictures when she died.”

“I’m sorry. If I could make it so the whole incident never happened, I would.” He knew the pain of losing articles that were important to the ones he'd lost. “I had intended to try and open up more, but I really don’t think blowing up at you was the best way to go about it. If I had actually opened up to you before that, it never would have happened.”

"And I am so, so sorry. I would never hurt you like that on purpose," Iruka said, his voice diminishing as he tried to share his regret.

Kakashi stepped towards Iruka, and wrapped his arms around him tightly. Iruka grabbed him and held on as tightly as he could, barely managing to hold his tears back.

"I love you," they whispered at just the same moment.

~~~ Present ~~~

Iruka saw the curious stare from his lover, feeling Kakashi’s hand holding his cheek.

"It's been a bit much of a day…" Iruka blankly explained.

"That's quite the understatement there," Kakashi replied as he sat up, holding Iruka in his lap.

"And you're sure you don't have to leave in the morning?"

"Our favorite little pests made sure of it. I guess if we'd left we wouldn't have found him," Kakashi mused solemnly.

Iruka hated that thought. Of course he was glad the missing-nin had been caught, but the idea he'd been so close, and could have found Kakashi so easily bothered him. With their fighting, it hadn't even been a possibility in his thoughts, but it had been close to happening.

He buried his face in Kakashi's neck, mumbling to himself.

"What was that?" Kakashi asked curiously.

"Nothing. Just know that no matter what I say when I'm angry, I love you. And you'd better do everything in your power to survive through anything, because I don't want to have to live without you," Iruka bared his deep thoughts.

"I'll do anything to make that always be just so."

They leaned together and shared a kiss. One to make up for every moment in the last few weeks, and to forever bind them together.

**Author's Note:**

> My first remix piece, which was interesting, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. Hope to get the chance to do it again in the future.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Mirror Image](https://archiveofourown.org/works/835738) by [chibi_zoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibi_zoe/pseuds/chibi_zoe)




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